The ‘Technology Updates’ brings to the fore latest developments in technology and manufacturing techniques. The objective is to keep the industry and the government abreast of technological development and its impact on businesses.

Anyone can control the chamfer size on one side of a part with a through hole. Most machinists can even do it without the presence of a burr. But when it comes to the other side of the part, controlling chamfer size or corner break size can be a challenge. This is especially true for parts that require a .002” maximum corner break.
For those involved with glass to metal seals, (hermetic seals) you know how important it is to maintain flat, uniform and... + View Full

Anyone can control the chamfer size on one side of a part with a through hole. Most machinists can even do it without the presence of a burr. But when it comes to the other side of the part, controlling chamfer size or corner break size can be a challenge. This is especially true for parts that require a .002” maximum corner break.

For those involved with glass to metal seals, (hermetic seals) you know how important it is to maintain flat, uniform and burr-free surfaces on a part prior to melting the glass. The larger the chamfer is, the more predominant the meniscal effect becomes. Whether you are grinding the seal or producing a flat seal, a consistent corner break can only increase the quality of your finished product.

Price Manufacturing, Inc. has developed and perfected a multi-fluted counter sinking tool for use on multi-spindle screw machines, that actually faces the part, bores the hole and controls the corner break in one operation. Accompanied by an ingenious self centering tool holder, the multitasking countersink tool produces a smooth, burr-free corner the first time and every time.

Aerzen presents the first Rotary Lobe Compressor Relying on experience in the design and production of rotary lobe blowers since 1868 and screw compressors since 1943, Aerzen has continually set new standards for quality and innovation in the field of twin-shafted positive displacement machines. Aerzener Maschinenfabrik is amongst the pioneers of compressor technology and is today one of the leading manufacturers worldwide.
1960 saw the launch of the world&... + View Full

Aerzen presents the first Rotary Lobe Compressor Relying on experience in the design and production of rotary lobe blowers since 1868 and screw compressors since 1943, Aerzen has continually set new standards for quality and innovation in the field of twin-shafted positive displacement machines. Aerzener Maschinenfabrik is amongst the pioneers of compressor technology and is today one of the leading manufacturers worldwide.

1960 saw the launch of the world’s first compact blower arrangement, 1987 saw the development of internal pulsation dampening and 2006 saw the launch of the fifth generation of blowers – the G5. This model range has proven extremely successful due to its in-built qualities of ease of use; ergonomic design regards maintenance, low noise levels and high reliability of operation and remains a market leader today.

This unique combined experience from the worlds of rotary lobe blowers and screw compressors is the foundation upon which the new groundbreaking and future-oriented Delta Hybrid technology has been developed – the first series of Rotary Lobe Compressors.

Delta Hybrid is a synergy of blower and compressor technology. By combining the technical advantages of both concepts it offers completely new possibilities for generating positive pressure or vacuum in air and neutral gas applications.

A total of 7 patents or patent applications currently make the Delta Hybrid one of the most innovative products in compressor technology. While low pressure applications call for the Roots-principle of isochoric compression, the screw compressor with its internal compression ratio offers greater energy efficiency in higher pressure ranges.

The package concept is based on the well known and successful Aerzen Delta design (Delta Blower and Delta Screw) but has been systematically upgraded. These compact packages already offer class leading noise enclosures, carefully designed to minimise noise, allow safe but easy access to filters and provide an optimized air flow arrangement that prevents warm discharged air from short circuiting and being dragged in on the inlet side. The current Delta Package design also features an external oil-level indicator that can reliably be viewed even when the machine is operational – reducing downtime and simplifying the work of operators.

Aerzen have listened to customers worldwide to understand what tomorrow’s requirements will be and a clear message was received that power costs were increasingly an issue. Over a ten year operating period energy costs equate to about 90% of the total Life Cycle Costs of a compressor. With this in mind, the Delta Hybrid was developed with the focus on increasing energy efficiency and achieving a significant reduction of energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions.

The ideal union of both rotary lobe blower and screw compressor technologies resulted in the Delta Hybrid, a future-oriented innovation that reduces the energy consumption by up to 15% compared to current market leading designs.

A 3+3 twisted rotor profile is used for low pressures applications up to 800 mbar (12 psi) whereas a 3+4 rotor profile is used for pressures up to 1500 mbar (22 psi): the result is that a machine with optimised efficiency can be selected for the required pressure range. A newly optimized fluidic design of inlet and discharge ports provides for ideal flow conditions and reduced slippage. Inlet air is sucked in on the cold side of the package and insulated discharge silencer isolation helps to maintain a low inlet temperature therefore increasing the compression efficiency. Moreover, the belt-driven Delta Hybrid offers the significant advantage of providing exact design sizing to suit the requirements of the application. This differs to direct drive designs which utilise standard gear ratios and which inherently produce inbuilt inefficiencies. In other words, a machine supplied which provides a 5% excess in volume flow corresponds to a 5 % higher energy use, whereas the Delta Hybrid package which uses belt-drive does not suffer from this over sizing and energy wastage.

The new Delta Hybrid-series distinguishes itself by the following advantages:

* Automatic belt tension by means of hinged motor mounting plate, operation and maintenance access from the front, oil level check from the outside even during operation

* Low noise levels as standard

* Suitable for outdoor installation

Another essential advantage of the new Aerzen Rotary Lobe Compressor is the extension of the range of application and increased pressure capabilities. By design, conventional rotary lobe blowers are limited to a differential pressure of 1 bar (15 psi). When it comes to higher pressures other types of compressors are used. These are often designed for significantly higher pressures and at higher initial investment. The new Delta Hybrid now closes this gap with a differential pressure capability of 1.5 bar (22 psi). Vacuum operation can now be extended from -500 mbar (-15”Hg) to -700 mbar (-21”Hg). In addition, the safe discharge temperature limit of the Aerzen Delta Hybrid has been raised to 180 °C (356ºF), enabling full load operating in especially warm climates.

Similar to its predecessor, the Delta Hybrid stands out for its outstanding reliability and long life cycle. In wide-ranging research, Aerzener Maschinenfabrik developed new seal solutions at the drive shaft and at the rotor chamber to minimize the natural wear. A new Aerzen patented bearing system extends the bearing life to Lh10 exceeding 60 000 operating hours (at a differential pressure of 1000 mbar (15 psi).

As in previous generations the Delta Hybrid features a purely reactive discharge silencer. Since absorption material breaks down over time, Aerzen has avoided its use to prevent contaminating the downstream process system. This makes it suitable for use in pneumatic conveying systems in the food industry, reducing potential costly cleaning and interruption of production.

The new Aerzen Delta Hybrid packages have been designed for oil free compression of air and neutral gases and find application in varied industries such as wastewater treatment plants, chemical industry, power generation plants, or for the pneumatic transport of powders.

Aerzen now have the ability to offer a range of low pressure high volume oil-free package solutions to exactly suit all customers’ requirements. Delta Hybrid sits ideally between the current G5 Delta Blower packages, designed to operate up to 1000mbar and the VM/VML screw compressor packages, designed to operate at between 2 and 3.5 barG. Selection tools used by the Company allow each application to be sized and an optimal machine selected. Whole Life Cost calculations can be provided comparing the different technologies which reflect the varying capital, operation, and maintenance and power costs for a 20 or 25 year lifetime. The result is the presentation of all Aerzen technologies side by side, giving the end user the choice according to their own Companies strategies, objectives and goals.

Meet DARwIn-OP, America’s newest humanoid robot, unveiled this week at IEEE’s Humanoids 2010 conference. He is 18 inches tall, weighs 6 pounds and is ready to be messed with. It’s OK, he’s an open-source bot.
Designed by Dennis Hong’s RoMeLa team at Virginia Tech with collaborators at University of Pennsylvania's Grasp Lab, Purdue University, and Korean company Robotis, DARwIn-OP’s hardware and software are open-source &m... + View Full

Designed by Dennis Hong’s RoMeLa team at Virginia Tech with collaborators at University of Pennsylvania's Grasp Lab, Purdue University, and Korean company Robotis, DARwIn-OP’s hardware and software are open-source — you can fabricate the parts, choose your own electronics and build one of your own. And why wouldn’t you? There’s something so cute about his Astroboy fins.

About 10 DARwIn-OP units were making the rounds at IEEE this week, and afterward will be distributed to the partner universities. If you don’t work in a robotics lab and don’t have access to a CAD system, Robotis will build one for you, to the tune of $12,000 ($9,600 with an educational discount).

That Nike + iPod technology that allows shoes and workout machines to feed information to portable electronics devices was a nice first step in merging athletic equipment and electronics to help users work out smarter. Now Reebok is taking the next step, working with startup MC10 to create flexible electronics that are built right into sportswear, removing the need for some clunky external device to record or transmit data.
Neither Reebok or MC10 is speakin... + View Full

That Nike + iPod technology that allows shoes and workout machines to feed information to portable electronics devices was a nice first step in merging athletic equipment and electronics to help users work out smarter. Now Reebok is taking the next step, working with startup MC10 to create flexible electronics that are built right into sportswear, removing the need for some clunky external device to record or transmit data.

Neither Reebok or MC10 is speaking specifically about what sort of products they are developing, but a Reebok exec has said the company wants to use flexible electronics technology to develop athletic apparel that is also a device, making the electronics invisible to the user. Using MC10 flexible silicon tech, Reebok could conceivably incorporate electronics into a shirt or a patch that sticks directly onto the skin.

Those wearable electronics would conform to the shape of the body, requiring no casing for hard electronics. They could be laden with sensors that monitor an athlete’s biological indicators, like pH levels in sweat, heart rate, or blood pressure, generating data on metabolism or other factors and beaming it wirelessly to a trainer’s laptop. Or they could be more simple, counting steps to measure the distance traveled or the number of reps completed.

MC10’s electronics (born out of a collaboration between materials scientists from U. of Illinois and Harvard) are ideal for such products, as they are pressed from super-thin strips of silicon that have been printed onto flexible substrates that can be incorporated into textiles or embedded in the fabric or some of an athletic shoe. And while MC10 isn’t the first company to create flexible electronics, their silicon-based flex tech is more efficient and fast than comparable materials made of organic semiconductors.

But don’t go adjusting your workout to take advantage of smarter sports apparel just yet – the ideas are still in the lab and MC10 reportedly doesn’t see them hitting the market for a year or two. But the athletic niche may just be the tip of the iceberg for companies like MC10 that can effectively embed unobtrusive electronics in everyday apparel. Similar ideas have been kicked around the medical community for a while, such as shirts that can constantly stream diagnostic information to our doctors so they can get a larger picture of our daily physiology. We’ve already seen an evening dress that’s also a cell phone; we may soon be wearing more portable electronics than we carry.

Hertfordshire-based Friendly Technologies (FTL) has developed a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag that allows shops to instantly work out if any items are missing from their store and when they disappeared.
Unlike other RFID systems, FTL’s tags don’t give out information about the item - instead they confirm their identity when queried - and so off-the-shelf RFID readers cannot be used to work out what is in a person’s shopping bag... + View Full

Hertfordshire-based Friendly Technologies (FTL) has developed a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag that allows shops to instantly work out if any items are missing from their store and when they disappeared.

Unlike other RFID systems, FTL’s tags don’t give out information about the item - instead they confirm their identity when queried - and so off-the-shelf RFID readers cannot be used to work out what is in a person’s shopping bag or what items they have in their home. The system works by effectively taking a register of the shop’s inventory, scanning 600 times per second and asking the tag to confirm whether or not it is a specific product rather than asking it to provide details.

Each tag consists of a tiny silicon chip and an antenna to receive and transmit signals and power. They cost around 7p each to produce and can be read within a radius of 4m.Because the system is constantly scanning the items, if a product is thought to be missing there will be a record of the exact time it disappeared from the shelves.

The technology can also link to a computer screen that automatically detects when a shopper has picked a product up off the shelf and provides information about the item such as cost, availability and similar products. The technology was initially researched with a feasibility grant from the Scottish government and FTL hopes to have the product commercially available within six months.

Tekscan, Inc. is pleased to announce the addition of a flexible position sensor to its award-winning line of force and pressure sensitive technology. FlexiPot(TM), like Tekscan's reknowned FlexiForce® sensor, is ultra-thin, at just 0.008" thickness. This thin, flexible, low-power linear potentiometer complements the established FlexiForce product line to offer more options to design engineers in the design of OEM products.
Its paper-thin properties in addition to its:
o... + View Full

Tekscan, Inc. is pleased to announce the addition of a flexible position sensor to its award-winning line of force and pressure sensitive technology. FlexiPot(TM), like Tekscan's reknowned FlexiForce® sensor, is ultra-thin, at just 0.008" thickness. This thin, flexible, low-power linear potentiometer complements the established FlexiForce product line to offer more options to design engineers in the design of OEM products.

Its paper-thin properties in addition to its:

o linearity (±2% error)

o repeatability (± 1% of full scale)

o spatial resolution (less than 2% of full scale)

o low power-consumption

make it especially attractive to engineers looking to incorporate a position sensor as a user interface in handheld consumer devices, which continue to get smaller and more lightweight. The existing FlexiForce sensor, on the other hand, is ideal for detecting and measuring relative changes in force or applied load, rate of change in force, force thresholds, etc. These two products combine to offer design engineers a range of options whether they need a force or position sensor in their product.

Tekscan established its FlexiForce line in 1998 to meet the unique needs of companies requiring cost-effective force sensing solutions in their products. Tekscan offers both standard and custom designs to meet the needs of its customers. The FlexiPot, like the FlexiForce, is available in high-temp versions, withstanding temperatures as high as 420°F (200°C), which is an advantage to engineers designing industrial controls.